Sad news for young Australian Judoka.

Sad news has come to pass during the course of the OJU/JFA Oceania Open weekend.

As an extension to the competition held on 14-15 November, a multinational training camp was conducted at the International Judo Club located in Wollongong. In the course of the afternoon training session on the Sunday, after the competition, one of our rising stars was seriously injured.

Kosta Kouros, current 81kg junior champion, was subject to a freakish incident that has left him with a life changing neck injury that required significant surgery on Monday.

Clearly this is devastating news for many in our judo family, particularly for Kosta's family and friends as well as those at the training session on Sunday. In consultation with the AIS Performance Psychology team, we have put in place a support strategy to assist those directly impacted. It is worth noting that this incident is the first I have encountered to this severity in over 50 years of participating in the top level of Australian Judo.

Reports coming in from the surgery are all positive thankfully.

In a bid to assist the Kouros family with Kosta's rehabilitation, the JFA have set up a fund at Westpac to allow our Australian judo community to make much needed contributions if possible. If you would like to make a contribution, you may do so online or at any Westpac branch to this new fundraising account:

Account Name:

Judo Federation of Australia

BSB:

033 067

Account Number:

301159

Reference:

Kosta Kouros

The management of this fund will be under the watchful eye of our CEO, Paula Ward. Any enquiries related to this fund should be directed to her.